Is it OK to Make Fun of Somebody with a Disability
Should people have a laugh at somebody who has an impediment or disability ?
Most reasonable people would say generally no I suspect.
In today’s hysterically Politically Correct World - you’d have to say no way !
Depends how popular the person is your making fun though . . . my hypocrisy alarm is sounding !
Personally, I think everybody should be able to take a good natured joke. I believe, provided it is meant in good humour and not a maliciously then there shouldn’t be a problem.
But that’s by-the-by, we all know the world’s gone mad and it’s PC world with public figures and the media etc have to walk on egg shells - you can’t have a blackboard to write on a school for example . . . however
It seems to me that there’s a whiff of hypocrisy - that is, it’s obviously not a principle or something people believe in as it changes depending on who you are !
Two articles caught my eye in the paper, one in a quality broadsheet.
The broadsheet had an article about Jonathan Ross leaving the BBC and the headlined it
Good Widdance ~ let’s all laugh at his speech impediment
You can say it’s no big deal but that’s because it’s directed at him - what if it was somebody else - they’d never dare do it
Heather Mills McCartney has been on the end of countless media jokes and puns as she’s going on some god-awful ice skating reality crap TV show - what’s the joke - she’s lost a leg !
It’s supposedly funny because she doesn’t enjoy huge public support.
The point for me is that something is either right or wrong
If it’s right then it’s OK to do it - if it’s wrong then nobody should be doing it !
These same media outlets would hang any comedian if they made such jokes about figures held in public esteem or ethnic or of religious minority
Let’s have one thing or another, we can have free speech or PC Speech - not both !
And just to prove I know what I’m talking about - here’s a picture I took of a tree
Non-Hypocritically Yours
Rod
All that Remains of an Old Tree
the dinosaur said,
January 9, 2010 @ 7:31 pm
Rod, lovely photo and a really different subject matter, you’re really branching out
chris keyworth said,
January 9, 2010 @ 8:44 pm
cracking photo of an old wrotting limbless tree Rod, some may find this Ageist or poking fun at people who have lost limbs or just wrotting from the inside out but the fact is it was just one a tree..
regards
chris
Little Brother said,
January 9, 2010 @ 9:53 pm
Rod,
Good post. Ross is an example of a familiar trend where people who are slightly different from the norm use it to their advantage in many ways. I think it’s sad when some use it as a way of making fun of themselves, ie fat people making jokes about their eating habits. I know someone who does this and it seems to me it’s a kind of defence mechanism probably picked up from his school days.
It annoys me when some things are deemed acceptable when others are not. I realise losing a limb is far worse than losing your hair for example but does that make bald jokes ok? I remember the fear of having to wear glasses as a child because of the comments made about you. Now kids wear them without prescription lenses in them! How times change.
I sound as old as that tree stump
LB
Amiguru said,
January 9, 2010 @ 11:02 pm
Ironically, they’re not whiteboards either now. They’re called Smartboards!
le
N
Donald ( South Australia ) said,
January 10, 2010 @ 1:51 am
Hi Rod,
Happy New Year !
Just been catching up on your posts and photos - excellent reading. And that snow ! - 41C here today, so I’d appreciate a small package, if you don’t mind.
A busy ..few weeks at the coastal retreat, culling crayfish and abalone, and hurrying their departure with a disgraceful number of chilled and slightly spritzig Coonawarra reislings.
Agree with your sentiments about disabilities - how often do we see the same double standard applied to those on the other side of the political fence to the msm.. Even (or should we be not surprised?) the POTUS, Barack Obama, has his laugh at the Special Olympics.
Back to the reading and the snow,
Donald
Rod said,
January 10, 2010 @ 8:43 am
Hi Donald,
happy new year to you as well - even though you live on ‘the far side of the world’ and not in Lincolnshire I know enough to know you’re basking in sun whilst we’re tramping through snow and ice here
It’s at times like this lands afar become attractive to me
Cheers
Rod
Rod said,
January 10, 2010 @ 8:45 am
Dino & Chris,
very good - you felled me
Best
Rod
PS: check the properties of the pic and see what I originally saved the file as - note I didn’t use that name in the title underneath it !
Rod said,
January 10, 2010 @ 8:51 am
LB
that’s a good point, Dawn French, who spent years making fun of her size and eating habits, recently said that jokes about fat people should be banned and treated in the same way as ‘racist’ jokes.
Picking up on your double standards, people do have a warped sense of what is acceptable or not.
A woman once told me it upset here when everybody said she was too skinny - those same people wouldn’t have called her fat if she’d been overweight !
Best
Rod
Femme Fatale said,
January 10, 2010 @ 3:27 pm
Rod,
I have recently heard a comment about a relative now being a size 8, from a size 14, but they now look scrawny!
And why do people always say that fat women have got pretty faces?
Its beyond me
FF
xx
Rod said,
January 10, 2010 @ 5:53 pm
FF,
thanks for that - I’ll bet all those now calling her scrawny or skinny do so without hesitation and never used to call her fattie !
Double standards !
And why do people always say that fat women have got pretty faces?
You’ve got to think of something nice to say
Bit like babies - everyone of them’s ugly - but everybody says they’re beautiful
Rantingly Yours
Rod
Annie Flinn said,
January 11, 2010 @ 1:09 am
Rod,
I think that calling the tree old is blatant ageism. Be careful or the Gray Panthers will be on you.
Agedly yours,
Annie
Rod said,
January 11, 2010 @ 8:47 am
Annie,
you’re right it is ageism - I missed that thought - I’ll need to be more careful.
I’m more worried about Cougars than I am Panthers
Cheers
Rod
Amiguru said,
April 14, 2010 @ 7:08 pm
Rod,
In the 13th. century natural physical anomalies were accepted as can be seen in this extract from Judge Henry of Bratton’s
‘De Legibus Et Consuetudinibus Angliæ’ describing who may and may not be called children:
“Those born of unlawful intercourse, as out of adultery and the like, are not reckoned among children, nor those procreated perversely, against the way of human kind, as where a woman brings forth a monster or a prodigy. But an offspring who has a larger number of members, as one who has six fingers, or if he has but four, or only one, will be included among children.”
Amazing that a child prodigy was regarded as a perverse product!
Neville
Rod said,
April 14, 2010 @ 7:54 pm
Neville,
all children are ‘perverse products’ if you ask me
But seriously it’s incredibly interesting this sort of stuff. A snapshot like this really does give an insight into the life and times of the period - something that looking at an ld church can never do for example.
Thanks for taking the time to post such interesting stuff Neville - it’s greatly appreciated and not just by me
Best
Rod